have been to
neglect a sacred duty. There is no question of obligation. Till you are
on your feet again, a strong man, I will stand by you; when that time
comes, we part for ever."

John Saltram sank back upon his pillow with a heavy sigh, but uttered no
protest against this sentence. And this was all that came of Gilbert's
vengeful passion against the man who had wronged him; this was the end of
a long-cherished anger. "A lame and impotent conclusion," perhaps, but
surely the only end possible under the circumstances. He could not wage
war against a feeble creature, whose hold on life was still an
uncertainty; he could not forget his promise to Marian, that no harm
should come to her husband through any act of his. So he sat quietly by
the bedside of his prostrate foe, watched him silently as he fell into a
brief restless slumber, and administered his medicine when he woke with a
hand that was as gentle as a woman's.

Between four and five o'clock the nurse came in from the next room to
take her place, refreshed by a sleep of several hours; and then Gilbert
departed in the chill gloom of the winter's morning, still as dark as
night,--departed with his mind lightened of a great load; for it had been
very terrible to him to think that the man who had once been his friend
might go down to the grave without an interval of reason.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

A FULL CONFESSION.

Gilbert did not go to the Temple again till he had finished his day's
work at St. Helen's, and had eaten his modest dinner at a tavern in
Fleet-street. He found that Mr. Mew had already paid his second visit to
the sick-room, and had pronounced himself much relieved and delighted by
the favourable change.

"I have no fear now," he had said to the nurse. "It is now only a
question of getting back the physical strength, which has certainly
fallen to a very low ebb. Perfect repose and an entire freedom from care
are what we have to look to."

This the nurse told Gilbert. "He has been very restless all day," she
added, "though I've done what I could to keep him quiet. But he worries
himself, now that his senses have come back, poor gentleman; and it isn't
easy to soothe him any way. He keeps on wondering when he'll be well
enough to move, and so on, over and over again. Once, when I left the
room for a minute and went back again, I found him attempting to get out
of bed--only to try his strength, he said. But he's no more strength than
a new-born